As reported by Sara Mirk in the Portland Mercury, a new study from the Political Economy Research Institute found that bicycle and pedestrian projects are larger job generators than road projects of equal project cost.

The author studied projects from the City of Baltimore. Per $1 million of project cost, road projects created 7 jobs while pedestrian projects created 11 jobs. By comparison, bike lane projects leveraged 14 new jobs per $1 million spent.

Why the difference? According to the study, pedestrian and bicycle projects are more labor intensive while road projects are more material intensive.

Photo credit: OregonLive